Christmas came and went. The Journey to Christmas is complete for another year. Before we move on and focus on 2014, I want to relate one more story in the Maranatha saga. As you know it started with the faint memory of a song in Maranatha, in this way, our Lord comes, continued with the discovery My Mother was a Jesus Freak, and the deeply personal The Donut Hole. The final chapter actually occurred the Sunday before Christmas.

A week or so before Christmas, I learned that my father had also written a blog post for the church’s advent devotional (as a retired Baptist minister he was probably much more qualified to write a devotional than yours truly). In a lot of ways, my dad is a very private person so reading his thoughts and feelings on his journey to his first Christmas without mom was very touching (though I have to admit, it DID take me back to the days of sitting in the rock hard pews and listening to him preach). It was especially poignant to read him share his memories of the Maranatha advent tradition. Now, I don’t if my earlier inquiries about the song sparked the memory for him or if it was one of those coincidences of life that had us both write about the same memory, probably doesn’t really matter. What I do know is that we HAD to do it. We HAD to pay him a visit and “Maranatha him”. (You can find his post “Christmas Comes Whether We are Ready or NOT!” It’s the second one on the page)

I sent an email to all my siblings and all the grandkids asking them if they would be willing to join Carmen and I. All the ones in town agreed. Knowing that NONE of us could sing and that NONE of us even knew the tune to sing, I asked a friend of mine to record a track for us so we could sing along.

There we were, Sunday morning December 22nd, 8:45 AM, 35 degrees, and rain/sleet. Three generations gathered at Hoosier Village outside his door. We rang the bell (ok, multiple times, in the annoying way my brother and my oldest son do, just so he would know it was family). Soon the door opened, and there was my dad, in a t-shirt and skivvies (glad it WAS family, though I could hear my granddaughter exclaim “He’s in his underwear!”). Undeterred, we broke out in the absolute worst rendition of Maranatha that the world has ever heard (The track was perfect, it was us that stunk, seems like only a handful of us practiced or even listened to the track beforehand). By the time we were done, dad was in tears (not sure if it was the emotion of the moment or our singing), we all gave him a hug, wished him Merry Christmas, and sang “We You a Merry Christmas” as we gave him the gift of Stollen and left.

We later heard that when he arrived at church that morning he was “happier than he had been in some time” and was bursting with excitement as he recounted the story (and just to be clear, he was fully dressed by then). I think of all the gifts given, or received, THAT was the most special of all.

If anything you read here or in other posts strikes a chord, I would love to hear from you. Leave a comment, find me on Twitter (@jtongici), or connect with me on LinkedIn, or Google +.

Loved your story, and I am inspired. I spent some time today comforting a family of a hit-an-run victim. I was so touched by that family and their situation that it made me come home and hug everyone I could find. I just gave them another hug after reading your story. I sure miss my dad. Thanks